The Return
by God's Must Be Strong
Summary: Wally West was back. He didn't know why or how, but one thing he wanted to know was, who is the man in yellow?


Nebraska, United States  
18:53, October 31st 2017

The seasons were changing, the Yannovich family and everyone else that lived near Red Cloud could tell, if not from the obvious sign of the leaves changing color then by the shortening of days. That's why on the evening of this particular day, Halloween in fact, a young Mikel Yannovich was getting all dressed up. His younger sister Anastasia was laying in the corner and doodling in a coloring book about superheroes, Wonder Woman was her favorite, while his older brother Sasha was teasing him from where he stood in the doorway. Sasha had his arms crossed over his chest and a shit eating grin on his face as he kept throwing jokes at him.

"Will you stop styling your hair?" He started, "It's not like it's that important."

Sasha left the doorway and came up to roughly grab Mikel by the shoulders, "The girls are gonna be long gone from that ugly mug of yours before they check out the hair," he finished with a cackle.

"Fuck off." Mikel said with a scowl, a small smile threatening to break through on his face. He was used to the teasing, the two had been doing it to each other for as long as they had been alive.

It was nice to see Sasha smile again. He hadn't been the same since he had come back from the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Kaznia. The country had a special place in the brother's hearts considering that their parents had been born and raised their before immigrating to the United States. Sasha had been one of the regiments that had been assigned to their ancestral homeland and it had changed him for the worst.

He was brought out of his musings by the vibration of his cellphone. His darling little sister Anastasia scooped it off his nightstand before he could reach for it and giggled as she looked at the screen.

"Who's Sarah?" She said between laughs.

Mikel turned beet red in the face and lunged for the phone. Ana took off like a bat out of hell, running towards Sasha and handing off the phone. Still pretty flustered, Mikel started towards Sasha who held him at bay with just his pointer finger. After all Sasha was a massive mountain of muscle, his time in the military had seen to that, whereas Mikel was an athletic 18 year old. So yeah, he had no chance of getting his phone back.

"This your main squeeze Mikey?" Sasha said, a devilish look on his face.

"Just a friend." He said through gritted teeth, annoyed at having his privacy invaded, "Now give it back Sasha."

"Oh yeah, because friends have heart emoji's by their name," He chuckled, tossing the phone back to his younger brother.

With a sigh Sasha turned towards Ana, "You!" He accused with a finger pointed at her, "Did you finish your homework?"

The little girl could barely hold back giggles as she nodded her head.

"You're a liar!" He laughed heartily, "And liars get tickled!" Ana screeched and sprinted out of the room as fast as her little legs could carry her, Sasha feigning pursuit. The eldest of the Yannovich's started out of the room but stopped at the doorframe.

"Mikel?"

He looked up from his text message, "What it is?" Taking immediate note of the serious look on his brother's face. You didn't ignore that kind of look.

"Be careful out there alright? You know to let me know if anybody tries to mess with you because I swear to God I will break their spines if they try to fuck with you."

"Sash, I'll be fine," He said a carefree grin on his face, "I appreciate your concern though."

Sasha nodded resolutely, made to leave again but stopped at the door and turned back to his little brother, the same serious look on his face, "And remember," he said, pinning him down with his intense blue eyes.

"To armor the tank before you enter the flank,"

Mikel couldn't help but burst out into laughter, his sides burned from the intensely serious look on his brother's face and with what he had just said. Sasha' façade slipped as a small chuckle masked as a cough came out, before it became a full-fledged laugh.

"But hey, have fun tonight," Sasha finished with a genuine smile on his face before yelling down the hall at Ana that he was coming to tickle her if her homework wasn't done.

After his brother had left, Mikel peeked around the corner of the doorframe before he flexed in the mirror, grinning slightly at himself for the muscles he'd worked hard on. Which to be fair weren't that great but he was proud of them nevertheless.

Grabbing his wallet and keys he hurried out of the house and into his car, Sarah had said the party was going to start at seven and he was well over half an hour away. Good because he didn't want to be the first person there but also bad because he wanted to spend as much time with Sarah as he could tonight.

The drive out of town was spent drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of a hip hop song that was on the radio – watching the sun set over the sleepy small town he lived in. When he pulled up to the house he was surprised to see a lot of people already there and hurriedly parked his car and got out, spotting a couple of his friends from school standing around outside. When he went inside the pungent smell of weed hit his nose and he saw a couple of people smoking over in the corner, he ignored them as he spotted what he was really here for.

Sarah. Her dirty blonde hair was curled up like she was from the 1950's, she looked the part too, as they had both decided to be the main couple from the movie Grease, but oh lord he just couldn't get over how good she looked tonight. One of her friends made a joke and she laughed, revealing her perfect white teeth that only amplified her ruby red lips. Which looked so unbelievably kissable at the moment. When her emerald green eyes turned on him he felt his heart stop in his chest. Her eyes seemed to shine for a minute as she gave an amazing smile as she noticed him.

And for once, things were looking up for Mikel Yannovich.

Things went great, the two of them spent the whole party together or just around each other in general. Then before he knew it, it was almost two in the morning. Shit. He swore under his breath, and reached for his phone, his movements sluggish from the alcohol.

There were three texts from Sasha, each of them reminding him that their mom would be home at four in the morning from her shift at the clinic and he was dead meat if he didn't show up. Sarah wrapped her arms around his neck as he read the texts, and only then did she realize that they too were both out past their curfews.

Mikel offered to drive her home, since she had ridden with her friends who were all too far gone to be anywhere near a vehicle. One of them was passed out on the lawn of the house. He was all gung ho about no drinking and driving, but he would take the risk if he had too because he was not about to face the wrath of his mother in any way.

He fumbled around in the pocket of his leather jacket for the keys to the car as he walked to it, his armed wrapped around his heartthrob. Mikel even opened the door for her and that earned him a peck on the cheek but also caused his heart to leap into his throat. The kiss had left him with a goofy grin plastered across his face and it didn't take long for Sarah to notice either; who sat with a satisfied smirk on her face as she wrapped the leather jacket around herself for warmth.

She was very well aware of how infatuated he was with her, he could tell. Just as he was aware of how smitten she was with him.

With that he started the car and pulled away from the party onto the dirt road that connected the farm to civilization. Sarah tried her best to stay awake but within five minutes of driving she was somewhere between awake and asleep. She would wake up and make some completely random comment before leaning back into her seat and closing her eyes, snuggling up with Mikel's leather jacket. Under which she looked absolutely adorable.

The drive seemed to stretch on forever. His only company being the half sober musings of his crush in the passenger seat and the song The Man Comes Around by Johnny Cash playing softly over the radio, and he couldn't help but mouth the words to the song. After all it was a classic.

Reaching for his phone he checked the time and found out that it was only 2:30, so they were making pretty good time. He reckoned it would take him another twenty minutes to get back to town and drop off Sarah, who he hoped would be awake by then, and another ten to get back to his house before his mom even left work.

Then up ahead he saw another car approaching, judging from the extremely bright headlights. But as he looked closer he saw that was not the case at all.

A blue and white vortex had formed in the middle of the freaking sky.

That wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that it was blocking the road and he was not about to drive into that. He'd stopped about the length of a football field away, or a couple hundred meters, and was planning his next move. With the worst case scenario being that he just drive along the side of the road and in the ditch that lined it to avoid the thing. He figured that was what he was going to do. As he put the car into drive and out his foot on the gas to go forwards, something happened.

The vortex began to pulse rapidly, glowing brighter as time passed, to the point where it practically lit up the whole night sky and all the farm fields around it. From the center of the vortex a red streak of lightning emerged, leaping out of the vortex and onto the country road – the singularity closing shut behind it.

Mikel watched, fascinated, as the streak sped around in circles before changing direction. Right towards him. Before he could even put the car into reverse the streak was upon him.

Tore off the door to the car and flung him out into the ditch. Before he could even stand up it was upon him again, but this time it had changed shape into the visage of a man in a yellow costume. The Man in Yellow glared at him with glowing red eyes, and the very air around him seemed to be vibrating from his presence. Mikel had never been so scared in his life.

In a chillingly deep and somewhat demonic voice the Man in Yellow asked a very odd question, "What year is it?"

Mikel was terrified by the whole scenario that it took him a few seconds longer than it should have to process what had been said.

"20-2017," He managed to get out.

The Man in Yellow seemed perplexed, yet satisfied by the answer given, "Where am I?"

"Nebraska," When the figure tightened his grip on Mikel's shirt he finished with, "Red Cloud,"

His captor grinned, well he thought he did at least, the man's face was very blurry to his own eyes.

"What is the exact date?"

"Octob- no, November 1st."

The Man in Yellow seemed to be pondering something, "Have the Reach arrived yet?"

Mikel nodded his head in agreement.

"Thank you for all of your helpful information," Mikel felt a weight lift off his chest as the Man said that, "Goodbye, Mikel Yannovich."

With that the Man in Yellow shoved a vibrating fist through Mikel's chest, stopping his heart from beating, and dropping him to the ground like a bag of potatoes. He watched with grim satisfaction as the young man struggled to breathe, his eyes flicking over to where the unconscious Sarah lay in the car in complete ignorance to the situation happening a few meters away.

The Man in Yellow followed his gaze and let out a sadistic laugh, "The funny thing is Mikel - you actually end up marrying her. You two live a long happy life together. Well until your thirties at least, when you come home from a day at the factory and find her in bed with another man, you in a fit of rage bash her skull in and that of her lovers with a baseball bat. You hide their bodies in a well and spend the rest of your life wracked with grief," He kneeled down to be face to face with the teen, "Always regretting your actions and drinking your life away."

The last words Mikel heard as his life faded was, "You should be thanking me for killing you."

Standing from the corpse, the Man in Yellow took one last look around the scene. He applauded himself for picking such a precise moment in time to travel back to. The fool had been no one of consequence to the timeline, and his death would have an extremely minimal effect on how events unfolded. There had been a brief consideration in taking on the boy's identity and using it as a way to get close to his nemesis, feigning to be someone in need of training… but that had been quickly pushed aside.

He wanted Barry Allen to know with his dying breath that he had beaten him, that he had been faster all along. Nothing would stand in his way of achieving his goal. Jay Garrick was far too old to assist him now and Wally West was killed by the Reach a year ago. Now he was all alone. Just like he had been the first time they had met.

A sinister grin crossed the Man in Yellow's face as he turned to the east and sped off into the night.

 **A/N: Let me know what you all think!**


End file.
